PressEthic

Media critics often fall into the trap of thinking that everything the media does is awful. So it may strike many angry wordsmiths wordless that the Times, instead of circling the wagons around Judith Miller, is instead running columns that end:

"Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands."

Those words come courtesy of Maureen Dowd, in an October 22nd column carrying the headline "Woman of Mass Destruction." Dowd, it seems, has written the story that should have ran in the place of last Sunday's mea culpa.

Dowd offers a real critique of Miller's story, poking holes in her assumptions that 85 days in jail makes one a flawless reporter. Dowd writes:

"Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about W.M.D. "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography."

Later, she continues,

"She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a "former Hill staffer" because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't."

With one column, Dowd has done more to save the integrity of the Times than the combined work of Keller, Miller and the motley crew of reporters who wrote last Sunday's piece. And the fact that this criticism appears within the pages of the Times is the most astounding thing of all. Dowd, and not Miller, is the real hero of journalism in this case.